<emph rend="bold">The Vale Artists, IV.—Reginald Savage.</emph>
The least-known of the illustrators of Dial,
Reginald Savage, has published very little work in England,
but is, nevertheless, anterior in date to [Ricketts](#CRI),
[Shannon](#CSH), and Pissarro. He first exhibited at the Institute
of Painters in Water-Colours, some ten years ago, choosing
romantic subjects, such as scenes from the lives of the saints.
His “Enid and Geraint” may be taken to represent that period
of his work. at the time this picture was painted, Savage was
an art-student working with Shannon—who first exhibited
in 1886—Ricketts, and Raven Hill. The last work he
exhibited in England was his “St. Elizabeth in Exile,”
which appeared at the first exhibition of the New Gallery.
Since that time his work has only appeared in Dial,
possibly because at the time the first number appeared the
work of the Vale men was, to a certain extent, boycotted
by all the galleries. He has engraved some of his own
drawings, and Ricketts has engraved one or two. The one reproduced
here, “The Lotus-Eaters,” is a reproduction of a pen-drawing,
and shows the artist to great advantage. His power of
imaginative treatmetn is displayed in the lotus-flowers
that grow through the vessel's decaying deck; in the languid
mariners, to whom movement of the body or brain is alike
impossible; in the misty phantoms hovering over all. The
mariner in the foreground recalls certain lines of Tennyson's
poem—
…if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
Surely, since the Moxon Tennyson was published, few designs
could be found showing as much concentration in workmanship and
thought as this little drawing.
Some of his earlier work found its way to Belgium, and the
Count de Looz commissioned the artist to decorate a family
chapel. This work took three years to execute, and consisted of five
compositions painted on the chapel walls, representing the
incidents in the life of St. Christine l'Admirable. It has
been found possible to reproduce a fragment of the preliminary
scheme for one of the designs, but this is all that can be
given. The interior of the chapel is dimily lighted, and it
has been found impossible to photograph the paintings. This
is much to be regretted, for they form the most important
work of Reginald Savage, and must always remain very little
known. Two of them measure sixteen by ten feet, and one
contains upwards of a hundred figures.
I have now come to the end of the brief series of articles
devoted to the Vale and its works. True it is that Sturge
Moore has done thirty or more engravings, but, seeing that
he and John Gray really represent the literary rather than
the artistic side of the Dial,
it is not necessary to deal with their work here. It only
now remains to consider the main aim of the artists.
The aim of the founders of the Dial
has been—if I understand it aright—the
suppression of outside interference with the artist's
work. Their use of original lithography and original
wood-engraving has undoubtedly tended to this end, for
they draw, execute, and at times even print their own
work; in fact, with the exception of [Mr. Lane](#JLA), who has
published their engraved books, they have no publisher.
The Dial has conferred upon
all its works the important gift of free expression, in
absolute diregard to the traditions of the publishing world.
Yet, despite this freedom, none of their work can be deemed
flippant in thought or execution. Often imaginative, they
show a distinct appreciation of the technique required by the
medium they use, so that the pen-drawings are unlike the
etchings, the lithographs and woodcuts are unlike either.
This conscientiousness in work, this moderate and careful
production in times where the output is so vast, has made
their rate of progress seem slow. Many men and styles have
sprung up, with mushroom-like rapidity, to become scorched
by the sum of indiscriminate eulogy, and wither as quickly
as they appeared. Meanwhile, the Vale men have found their work seadily
increasing in public favour, and, better still, in the
favour of those whose likes and dislikes are founded on a full
appreciation of merit. Moreover, they have enough experience and
knowledge of the world to take their success quietly, and
not to allow it to either to turn their heads from the ideals
they have ever turly followed or their hands from the labour
in which they delight.
THEOCRITUS.